SURFing the new wave in US-Russia relations

With U.S.-Russia relations in decline, students attempt to bolster the bilateral cooperative agenda by working on collaborative research projects.

Five
years ago, students from leading U.S. and Russian universities came together in
a Moscow cafe to discuss a huge geopolitical issue: U.S.-Russia relations. This
was following the Russo-Georgian war, after the deterioration of
Russian-American bilateral relations and shortly before the official launch of the
so-called reset. This is how the story of the Stanford
U.S.-Russia Forum (SURF) began.

“We
were in the right place and at the right time,” says one of its founders David Zokhrabyan.
“We know that the key to making progress is providing opportunities for
Americans and Russians to understand each other on a deeper level, and just two
conferences a year couldn’t do that. We
therefore decided to place collaborative research projects at the heart of
SURF. These projects provide long-term
opportunities for American and Russian students to work together toward a
common goal.”

The forum brings together students from some of the world’s top universities. Photo: SURF / Press photo

Annually held in Russia and
the U.S., the forum brings together students from some of the world’s top
universities — Yale, Stanford, Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, University of
California-Los Angeles (UCLA), University of California-Berkeley (UC Berkeley),
Moscow State University (MGU), Higher School of Economics (HSE), Moscow
Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), and others.

This
year, SURF is celebrating its fifth anniversary. The first part of the conference
took place on Oct. 8–12 in Moscow, bringing together 20 Russian and 20 American
students who will be working on collaborative research projects over the next
four months.

The project is expected to involve around 50 people, including
student advisers and mentors. In April, students will travel to Stanford to
present their findings and meet with high-profile experts, academics and
politicians.

“I found out about SURF purely by accident: I
was browsing one of Russia’s websites and, finally, came across the Stanford forum
official page,” says Stanislav Budnitsky, a Higher School of Economics graduate
who is currently working on a doctorate degree in communications at Carleton
University in Ottawa, Canada.

“I am studying public diplomacy, and exchange
programs like SURF are one of the most effective ways of public diplomacy,” Budnitsky
says. “Most importantly, students from the American side have the chance to be
exposed to Russian expertise and pundits. Likewise, when we Russian students go
to Stanford, we will have the chance to hear the American experts, academics
and their analysis, thoughts on U.S.-Russia relations — and that’s crucial.”

Indeed,
John Bonilla, a U.S. officer from Stanford, did not know about U.S.-Russia
relations before joining SURF. “I am a physicist and a mathematician, but
necessarily a politician,” says Bonilla. “But this experience changed my
perspective on U.S.-Russia relations. And it’s a great opportunity for
everybody to do that.”

According
to Ekaterina Markaryan, SURF president on the Russian side, organizing these
kinds of conferences is very challenging and time consuming.

“First,
you have to do a lot of fundraising, which is pretty competitive given the
growth of interest in soft power and the increasing number of public diplomacy
projects,” she says.

“This time, for example, our team did its best to get
funding and scholarship from the Gorchakov
Foundation for Public Diplomacy. Second, inviting experts is a pretty
tricky thing, because all of them have a very tough schedule: They may promise
to come, and reject shortly before the conference. That’s why you should to be
as persuasive and resourceful as possible.”

This
year, SURF students and officers met with the head of Renova and the Skolkovo
Innovation Center, Viktor Vekselberg, as well as the president of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT), Edward Crawley, at the Skolkovo Innovation
Center for the presentation of student startups on Oct. 12.

When
asked about the implication of SURF for U.S.-Russia bilateral relations,
Crawley says, “it is important to establish both these research connections.” Crawley
also talked about probable intersections between SURF and Skolkovo.

According to him, Skolkovo is focused on creating
innovation and moving science and technology toward commercialization of ideas,
and collaborating with U.S. Universities may be fruitful.

Likewise, Vekselberg points out to the lack of
U.S.-Russia collaboration in science and innovation. “There should be many more
such formats and forums. The Stanford forum is a multi-channel potential of
relations between professors, students, businesspeople. That’s why I wish it
would focus on more specific things. We would like to step up the collaboration
with Stanford.”

What results has Stanford U.S.-Russia Forum
achieved for five years? What challenges is it facing now? How will it tackle
these problems? Will
Skolkovo Innovation Center be able to find crosspoints with Stanford Forum?
Find the answers in the full article published at Russia Direct.